Where we are at with Iran

With more pain and little gain in the Iran war, the question is what course of action the US should take. The options are few. The stakes are great. Let’s have a look:

Option 1: double down

President Trump is doubling down on the air attacks. The US is nightly raiding Iranian military and dual use facilities. CENTCOM claims to have hit Iran’s military operation centers, naval capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage facilities, and military logistics infrastructure in an effort to further weaken Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

The results have not been great. Traffic through the Strait is still down sharply:

Most of what gets through does so with the Iran’s permission. In addition, Iran’s Yemeni allies, the Houthis, have declared an embargo of Saudi-connected traffic in the Red Sea. They haven’t enforced it yet, but if they do it will cut off several more million barrels per day of supply to world markets. Oil stocks are already at record low levels. Prices are approaching $100 per barrel.

Iran and its allies are attacking Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan was well as Israel and US forces throughout the Middle East. Damage to US military sites is significant. Many are too close to Iran for comfort:

The US is already moving some assets further away. That will further strain the pilots and equipment conducting the air attacks. Some US munitions stocks are dipping to levels that raise questions about whether the US would be able to meet a new contingency somewhere else in the world. The idiot MAGAtes now call the Secretary of War says the war has cost $37 billion. That will no doubt prove a dramatic understatement. Others are calculating $132 billion.

This may be a forever war, but this phase will have to end sooner or later.

Option 2: Invade

There is no option to invade all of Iran. It is 2.4 times the size of Texas with a population of 88 million, almost three times that of Texas. An invasion like that of Iraq in 2003 would require well over half a million troops.

The US could presumably seize control of the coast along the Strait, but that alone is at least 100 miles long. And the Iranians have the drones and missiles required to launch from further inland. The American troops on the coast would be sitting ducks.

Seizure of Kharg Island, where Iran loads most of its oil, would be challenging as well, but it would add nothing to the goal of opening the Strait. The US Navy in the Arabian Sea is already preventing the export of Iranian oil.

The US so far has suffered minimal casualties (less than two dozen killed and fewer than 500 injured). Those numbers would be multiplied by orders of magnitude in an invasion.

Option 3: Backoff

When you are in a hole, stop digging. The US could announce success and end its air attacks. The Iranians would then be free to extract tolls. Traffic through the Strait would recover to something like its pre-war levels.

Since oil is traded at world market prices (with variations for quality), the Iranian tolls would have to be paid by suppliers. But there are limits to what the Tehran can charge. If they charge too much, suppliers will build more pipelines that circumvent the Strait.

Even charges of 1 or 2% will bring significant resources to Iranian coffers, amounting to more or less Tehran’s oil revenue. The US is fond of saying tolls are not permitted. But in fact charges for “services rendered” are permitted under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention. Turkey collects them for passage of the Bosporus and Dardanelles. In the straits of Malacca, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore manage a voluntary funding system called the Aids to Navigation Fund.

The major downside of this option is the precedent it sets for other international straits, especially the Bab al-Mandeb:

Option 4: Negotiate the backoff

While Iran has indicated it has no trust in President Trump, the US could try to see what it could get for an offer to backoff.

This would arguably be better than doing it unilaterally. Washington might get Iran to agree to charge only for “services rendered.” It would also be useful to get Iran to agree to apply the 1982 Convention, which establishes a right to “transit passage” even in wartime. Tehran so far has agreed only to the 1958 Law of the Sea Convention, which does not allow charges but does allow interference with shipping during wartime.

This option would, like Option 3, open Pandora’s Box to charges for passage through other international straits. But that is arguably inevitable. Fortunately, most are at least partly under the control of countries that would likely prefer the current system, without tolls. The Gibraltar, Dover, Danish, and Bering straits fall more or less in this category.

The Bab al-Mandeb is the main sticking point. Providing the Houthis with a steady income would not be wise.

Bottom line

There are no really good options. Trump has driven the US into a dead end. But Option 4 beats the others, if only because a return to negotiation will save a lot of lives and money. But it will have to be a negotiation over the terms of tolling. That is a big loss for the US, but it’s where we are at.